Amalfi Coast & Pompeii

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We spent Easter exploring a great part of Italy, the Amalfi coast and surrounds. The weather was amazing, clear skies and 25 each day. They have a pretty tough life in this part of Italy, with all the beautiful food and wine, amazingly attractive people, sunny weather and a majestic coastline to match. Coming from the gloomy weather, assymetric faces and fried cod and chips in Britain, it was tough to adapt.

Too bad that to get there, we had to fly to Naples. From the airport we caught a bus to the station, but the stop was just past the station outside a huge pile of rubbish and a couple of prostitutes and drug dealers lining the streets. We eventually got ourselves on a train to Sorrento, which sadly was covered in graffiti all the way up the windows and some shady characters on board, but once we got to Sorrento, it all felt nice again, our hotel high up on the cliff overlooking the harbour.

We headed to the huge ruins of the city of Pompeii early to beat the crowds. Despite the huge numbers of people, Pompeii is such a massive site that you can always find a quiet spot to reflect and take photos of the eerie city ruined in 79AD and marvel at the sophistication of something so ancient. The huge Mt Vesuvius lurks in the background and as I read of how the city was literally buried in volcanic ash it is clear that most residents would have looked up and had the perfect view of their fate.

As always, I am sceptical about what is really original and what has been replaced, although the audio guide was remarkably frank and I got sick of hearing the words "this is a replica, the original can be found in the archilogical museum in Naples". Damn! Why not just leave everything in this open air museum where it belonged!

I was very impressed with the sophistication of the lifestyle of Pompeii in the first century. The houses were impressive as was the infrastructure in place, the theatres, etc. Until I found out that they washed their clothes in urine that was. I wonder who first came up with the idea and thought "gee my clothes stink, I should really try soaking them in urine". Crazy Italians. Walking around the site for several hours is tiring and also quite dusty work, which ensured that a quiet evening followed.

The next day we went to Positano, the largest and most beautiful town on the Amalfi coast. The town is built into the side of the cliff, which makes for some tough walking of the narrow winding streets. While it is super touristy and the beach is mostly pebbles, it was well worth the visit and once again I overdosed on gelati as we sat out overlooking the very still, aqua waters of the Mediterranean sea. We headed back to Sorrento on the ferry which thankfully was a calm journey alongside the sheer cliffs of the Amalfi coast.

What wasn't so calm was our trip back to Naples airport, what should have taken an hour ended up taking 3 hours due to the horrific Easter traffic and the poor roads back. Although at least being stuck in traffic meant that we got to admire the views of the Bay of Naples before heading back to London.

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